The Story Behind my Entries in 'The Natural Eye 2026'

Yellow-rumped Warblers after Snow Storm. Mokuhanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2026.

Warbling Vireo, Common Yellowthroat and Wilson's Warbler at Roxborough Reservoir. Mokuhanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2026.

Cedar Waxwings in Juniper. Mokuhanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2026.

I wish I had a better,  i.e. one with a photo, link to the online gallery of 'The Natural Eye 2026' but I don't, though that may be my own fault for not figuring out how to do so! So this is the sans-photo link: https://buyart.mallgalleries.org.uk/swla-2026/. I'd prefer a photo because it gives you an example right here as to what you might see there.

So let me just repeat what I've said many times: it is the only show that I really care about exhibiting in. When I started off as a young ambitious, abstract painter things that was not the case. I cared mainly about showing at 'prestigious' shows and galleries. Though that's not really correct either. I was thrilled to get into a lot of juried shows, though actually seeing the shows and the varied quality of the work often seemed to diminish the accomplishment.

I think that the difference today is that there is one place that I KNOW I'll be happy to exhibit and also know that I won't have mixed feelings about the quality of the other work. That is an unusual situation. I suppose that is partially because art that is focused on nature rarely makes it into the galleries or museums that I used to consider the ideal venue for my own work. That really just says something about the close-mindedness of the art world. As far as I can tell there still is a strong inherent bias against nature-based art, especially wildlife art. Many taboos have fallen in the 'art' world but not that against wildlife art. But back to my point:choosing between the most prestigious 'art' exhibitions in the US for instance and 'The Natural Eye', I unhesitatingly go for the latter. Why? Because it is straightforward art, based on real feelings about nature, and not self-befuddled by art theories, proprieties, trends, etc. It wears its heart on its sleeve as most good are also does!

So, with that said, I hope readers will take the opportunity to see that exhibit by clicking on the link above. Even better you can buy almost all of the art that is on exhibit! Best of all of course would be to see it for yourself but to do so you'll need to be in London for the first 10 days of October.

I've written so much in the past about why I find this exhibition to be so exciting that I'll try not to repeat myself here. But I would say that just copying a photograph of a wildlife subject is really not art; it is copying. Many people do it and there is an audience for it. But when you want to go beyond that as an artist there are a million other decisions you have to make, including whether or not you even want to refer to a photo at any point in making the art. There are so many other decisions that then stand in front of the artist. I mentioned some of them in last post so again I won't repeat myself.

I do just want to say that the richness and variety of the decisions that artists can make about wildlife and art are always on full display here. The imagination, creativity and love of the natural world are on full display. This is not love of being able to copy a photo; it is a love of the wildlife itself and finding way to get that down on paper/canvas, in wood/metal, etc., etc.

I rarely write about how any of my work came to be in terms of the actual subject and how I portrayed it so I thought I'd take the opportunity to do that here

The oldest mokuhanga, Cedar Waxwings in Juniper, is based on me seeing 100s of Cedar Waxwings last fall in Philadelphia. Over the last 10 years or so I've gotten used to seeing some Cedar Waxwings very near to our house, often 10-20 at a time. But last year there was a week or two where I was actually see 100 at a time. That was unusual, and striking! If you have seen my very quick brushpen sketches from life of birds you know that I like doing them. They are a very quick, usually less than a 1-2 minutes, sketch of a bird from life. This I think often helps to capture the shape, movement and just general impression of a bird. I had been making sketches like that of these birds over the last few years.  But I've never had the opportunity to see and sketch so many. Eventually I tried to incorporate those sketches, and the incredible sense of movement in them, in a print. I did that with the simple linear shapes. But what about their environment? Many of them were in junipers, which really are red cedars, and they were busy eating the blue berries. I have sometimes accidentally printed a wood block upside down while making a print, and liked the results. I think that it was also an accident here but it might not have been. In any case I realized that printing a few blocks upside down allowed me to have the same waxwing form doubled but in surprising positions and colors. Of course it's not quite that simple. I had to do a lot of exploration to decide which parts of the upside down blocks to print and which to skip. Mokuhanga, being a water-based type of printing, allows for incredible richness of color overlays. So that was another reason to print some blocks upside down: it makes for very rich color.  Of course there are many standard renderings of waxwings sitting on branches. But I wanted to do something that caught the real frenzy of 100s of them eating and flying about at the same time.

The next mokuhanga was based on a visit I and my wife made to Morris Arboretum early in the year after a big snow storm. We were sure to see a lot of pristine snow and probably some interesting birds as well. We didn't see as many birds as we expected but at some point I saw something popping out of the top of distant conifers, perhaps hemlocks. They were distant but their movement made me think Yellow-rumped Warblers. They are the warbler most likely to be seen in our area in winter. We walked over toward that area and as we got close one or two of them came down close to us in much smaller trees. So we could clearly ID them. Since they are ubiquitous for awhile in fall and sometimes spring I've done a lot of sketches of them, none wholly satisfying. I've also tried to sketch them quickly with a brush pen. That still is my preferred way to sketch and so the main bird here is based on that type of sketch. However here I wanted color  and shape, not line. So the warbler remains quite simple, just like the rest of the shapes. Again it just seemed like a more, interesting way to portray them. But speaking of 'them' where are 'they?' Most people will only see one. That is because I also wanted to portray the bread popping up out of a toaster phenomenon that first drew my attention to them. In a very detailed painting using very small brushes I' might have been able to portray them realistically. But carved wood does not allow for such precision, at least using most wood, and it wouldn't have been in keeping with the simple shapes of the rest of the composition. In the end I opted for 3-4 curved yellow shapes near the tops of the conifers. This is artistic license.

The most recent mokuhanga was inspired by seeing a tiny Wilson's Warbler, flitting in and out of cover, in somewhat early spring at the nearby Roxborough Reservoir. Coincidentally he is portrayed in the same type of vegetation as the waxwings, a Juniper or Red Cedar. I don't see Wilson's very often, especially in Philadelphia. So I wanted to commemorate that. BUT I barely saw him. He is tiny to begin with and actively flits about. In the wind of that day he was only visible for nanoseconds at a time. How could I portray this? I made a very small brushpen and watercolor sketch based a photo that I took that day. But how could I make a print of something with so little definition? Finally I thought about including two other birds I had seen that day. Both Warbling Vireos and Common Yellowthroats breed at the reservoir but do not overwinter there. This might have been the first day I'd seen them in 2026 but if not they were still fairly new arrivals. And they are emblematic at least to me of some of the birds that nest there. The Warbling Vireo is also a very plain bird but one that I've always wanted to portray. So this was the chance. It took quite awhile to take three sketches of each bird and move them around until I liked the composition. And it is realistic in the sense that vireo and yellowthroat were on the berm that divides the two basins of the reservoir, while the Wilson's was in a Juniper in full sun in one of the basins(the dry one). But there was the same problem as with the small Yellow-rumps? How could I carve something so small and far away in wood? In this case I tried to carve just enough to make it give the impression of a Wilson's. I should add that this mokuhanga took quite awhile to print, after taking twice that amount of time to come to the final composition. There were 10-11 blocks with many being printed more than once.

My brushpen sketches take less than 2 minutes. My mokuhanga take close to 2 months. Make of it what you will!

I Walked by a Sora, and Thought of 'The Natural Eye'

Three of my framed mokuhanga prints, about ready to be shipped to 'The Natural Eye' at The Mall Galleries in London.

 

I was walking through our kitchen this morning and saw a photo of a Sora on a calendar on a wall. I had to stop and look. How often do I get a good look at a Sora? What more could I learn about if from what I saw? Wouldn't it be great to be able to draw it from life again? All of those thoughts reminded me of something else I've been thinking about recently, all the various reasons to draw, and also this year's annual exhibition of the Society of Wildlife Artists' called 'The Natural Eye 2026.'

I have been showing at this juried exhibition since 2011, with a couple of off years early on where VAT requirements were just too complicated for me. It is always a thrill to have some of my work accepted for the show, and it is equally thrilling to actually see the show, just once in person in 2018 though that included 5-10 visits, but most of the time through online view by Mall Galleries and other online coverage. You walk out with a spring in your step.

I've often tried to explain why this is really the only exhibition I really care about getting into. I'm not sure about how successful I've been. But seeing the Sora on the wall got me thinking about it. If you've never actually seen a Sora I think, at least if you're interested in birds, you woiuld like to see one. But if you're an artist you'd like to see it well, and you'd like to see it well enough and long enough to see all the things that you find necessary in order to portray it. For me it always comes down to structure. How does the entire bird fit together. How does the bill relate to forehead and chin? Where is the eye in relation to bill? How does the head curve in the back? What is the conglomeration at the back of ther bird? Are the primary feathers and tail feathers in there somewhere? For me if you don't understand the structure on any bird, both generally and specifically, then you will have a hard time being accurate. 

 For me I'm also concerned with color. So as an artist you ask yourself what colors are there? What type of yellow would use for that bill. Where does the black near eye come in and how extensive is it? How does it relate to the other colors, including the grayish violet, and all the rich browns? I could go on and on. And then there is the marking on plumage. What color are they, where do they begin and end, are they too small even to paint without looking labored? For many artists this plumage detail seems to be the main thing. It is definitely not for me. But I understand how mesmerizing it can be.

But if you've seen many sora, or any bird actually, you, or at least I, have to think about movement? I almost physically empathize with the weight distribution of bird, almost feeling the stretch as it reaches out for possible food. Maybe that sense of movement is more important than plumage. It is for me.

And of course there is the environment that holds the bird. Reeds and mud, often for soras, with dark water often extending back into the reeds. A million other environments for a million, more or less, other birds. What do you do about them? It is a challenge you want to avoid or maybe something equally as interesting, at least to the artist, as the bird itself?

And all of this more or less supposes you want some sort of 'realistic' portrayal. Maybe you don't.

Brushpen and waterbrush sketches of Megachile bees, based on my photos. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski

Most of the edition of 'Warbling Vireo, Common Yellowthroat and Wilson's Warbler at Roxborough Reservior' mokuhanga. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski

Brushpen, waterbrush and watercolor sketch of Sachem Skipper. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Brushpen and waterbrush sketch from life of Carolina Wren on  our feeder. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

What I"m trying to get at, even with a photo of a bird on a wall, let alone a live bird, is that there are an incredible number of decisions an artist can make about how to portray the bird. I've just listed some. In the tiny sketch of the Carolina Wren above I think it is done. What more could I possibly add to it without stripping the life from it? The same is true to some extent of the watercolor from a photo of the Sachem Skipper above it. What more could I do without making it a bit lifeless? But some people would like more detail, possibly enough detail that it might help them identify it, as in a field guide. This is a real goal of some artists, but it is not mine. But it's still a legitimate goal of many artists. And many artists desire some sort of accurate portrayal, one that satisfies their own artistic desires, but isn't really something to use as an aid to identification.

My point is that there are just so many different methods and goals an artist can have when portraying wildlife.  I don't know of any other exhibition that even comes close to showing that variety, ands showing it at a high level, as 'The Natural Eye.' There is a feeling of great accomplishment in accuracy of realistic portrayal with more traditional means, and there is great accomplishment of equal accuracy with completely nontraditional means. There is art that covers an incredible variety of 'wildlife' subjects, subjects that I'm sure some of the audience at the show has never even seen portrayed in art before.

And as the prospectus says more or less, it would like art that captures the spirit of the natural world. That is more than just plumage detail though that can be part of it. But people who spend time outside, who see the natural world and appreciate it, can also sense it in art in front of them. There is art that is only based on a photo and there is an art that indicates a real understanding and appreciation of nature, even if it sometimes has the 'accuracy' of a photo. I think that is why you, or at least, I left the show I saw in person with a spring in my step. It is a joyous show, celebrating nature in all its forms.

Brushpen and waterbrush field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Brushpen and waterbrush field sketch of local Peregrines. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Brushpen, waterbrush and watercolor sketch of Wilson's Warbler from my photo. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Partial edition of 'Cedar Waxwings in Junipers' mokuhanga. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

Brushpen and waterbrush sketch from life of Northern Cardinal outside studio window in rain. Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski.

In showing so much of my own work I'm just trying to show the various ways that I approach art, in very quick sketches done in about a minute, to an edition of mokuhanga which often takes 60-80 hours,  and everywhere in between. There are just so many ways to make art based on birds and wildlife.

Once the online gallery of this year's 'The Natural Eye' is available I will post a link here so that readers can see for themselves what I am talking about.

Of course I've forgotten something: the tremendous amount of imagination and creativity in the way that the artists in 'The Natural Eye' decide to portray their subject. Hopefully that will be quite obvious when I put up the link to the show. In many ways it is this imagination and creativity that is the most exciting part of the exhibition!

I should add that I wrote this on a Mac but the Mac and Blogger are at constant odds with one another. So if you see more typos than normal......

Three Often Coflicting Goals

Latest proofs on new mokuhanga: “Warbling Vireo, Common Yellowthroat and Wilson’s Warbler.” Copyright 2026 by Ken Januski

 Not for the first time I’m trying to finish a mokuhanga and am torn in three directions. What should be most important? The accurate rendering of the subjects, or at least no inaccuracies; an accomplished use of technique, especially in a craft as specialized as mokuhanga, or at least no glaring technical mistakes; or making good art, something that is pleasant to look at or better exciting and exhilarating to look at regardless of accuracy or technique?

In quick sketches I don’t have to worry about this. If they are quick there will most likely be inaccuracies, especially if working from life.  But with my prints, which generally take 3-4 weeks from start to finish, I want all that effort to pay off and to somehow satisfy all three of the above criteria, without driving myself nuts! In the end though it is the art part that takes highest precedence.

This mokuhanga is nearly finished but I just wanted to document my goals as I work on something ambitious before I forget about it and move on to something else.

Do You Need to Be Able to Compose a Fugue in Order to Make Quality Bird Art?

Yellow-rumped Warblers after SnowStorm. Mokuhanga by Ken Januski, copyright 2026.

A silly title perhaps but there is a definite point to it, though it may take a while to get there. What got me thinking about writing fugues, which I never have and almost certainly never will, was that it seems like it has been required often for people who wanted to compose ‘classical’ music. I say this as a non-musician and someone who has only been interested in it for the last 10-15 years.The point is: do you need to learn the basics of a field, no matter how old and perhaps cliched, in order to create good work in your medium, regardless of whether it is music or the visual arts?

One other thing that prompted this was being rejected from a bird art exhibition which I rarely apply to because it is so dull, at least to me. Out of curiosity I asked Google afterwards “Do any bold bird artists still exist?” I got an AI list of a few artists I’d either never heard of or certainly did not consider ‘bold!’ I also was offered something as an answer that referred to what was needed for great bird art. The answer: it needs to look like it’s about to fly right out of the picture. Hmm. Sounds simliar to the ancient Greek painters of only 2000 years or so ago.

White-tailed Deer, Green Heron and Wood Duck. Linocut by Ken Januski,  copyright 2013.

Mama Wood Duck Squawking at Errant Young. Brushpen and watercolor sketch by Ken Januski, copyright 2026.

The third strand of motivation for writing on the subject was just seeing yesterday a mother Wood Duck, bill open, squawking away at a couple of newly hatched ducklings that had wandered off from the ones sitting next to her and were surely headed for danger. I’d used a similar pose as part of a very early print of a Wood Duck squawking at a White-tailed Deer that was entering the water very near to her. Because it was early in my bird art endeavors and also my printmaking endeavors the print was a bit of a hodgepodge, mainly because I could not figure out how to add all the elements, including a Green Heron, togther in a convincing and interesting way.

The last strand of motivation for this post was my recently finished mokuhanga, ‘Yellow-rumped Warblers after Snow Storm.’ What could I write about it? Would it be seen as hopelessly primitive and inept?

As I thought about this over the last few days it reminded me of the problems I foresaw when I decided to make my fist art using birds as subject. Some of these problems I’m sure arose from my 30+ years as an abstract artist, but also someone with a lot of exposure to realistic art and art history. The main problem I saw was that I couldn’t just plop a bird down on bare paper or canvas and think that I had made art.* It might be a sketch, or a study, but it certainly wasn’t art, except perhaps if my sketches looked like those of Rembrandt. I thought this held for all bird art not just mine.

So much of what I saw was all about the bird and only the bird. So much bird art was just a bird plopped on a page. There might have been a lot of detail, but still it was just plopped on a bare page or canvas. Some bird art, which I liked a bit more, seemed to vignette the bird. The bird was still plopped down more or less in the center of the canvas and then some gauzy, indistinct, slightly impressionistic rendering of a few leaves or branches were put in and then feathered out to nothingness at the edge of the canvas/paper. These were more convincing but still seemed both formulaic and a bit fudged. The other main method that I saw, and still do, was to place the bird in a realistic environment of smothering, stultifying detail.

Those were the three avenues I saw as open to me and none of them seemed appealing.

The last is probably still the most popular with people who like bird art. It is made easier for artists who use photographs as the source from which to extract the environmental detail. But to me the easiness shows in that there is often no compositional creativity. Everything is dictated by the photo. And of course it can also smack of tedium. But, back to the musical theme, I wondered if perhaps it was just necessary to learn how to paint enironmental detail, just like musicians ofteh had to learn to compose a fugue. But for someone who had painted large abstract paintings for 30 years or so the answer was NO! Still there has always been that question: was I ignoring something important because if seemed like too much work and I didn’t like it? I’m sure some  music composition students did not like the idea of writing fugues, at least when they started!

But for me the answer remained, and remains, NO. I don’t want to create work that places birds in a detailed but somewhat believable world. Though I can admire the work of some artists who work that way I have no desire to do so myself. I should add that most of the artists I admire who do work in that manner are not totally beholden to photos. They may use them but still let themselves be the boss of what goes into and what does not go into the environment  they create for their subject.

One thing I did know when I started is that I needed some sort of environment for the bird subject. If it was not going to be realistic detail perhaps I could do it through the formal means of color, texture, shape and the relationship of all of these. I would say that I am still doing that more or less. The one thing that has changed I think is that I also no longer feel any need for traditional representational space. Sometimes I use it and sometimes I don’t. The print of the squawking Wood Duck, White-taiiled Deer, Green Heron and vegetation is one of my first crude stabs at including all of these subjects, but not in a traditional manner. It was a stumbling step forward.

One thing that  I picked up from all of my courses in art history and from many visits to museums etc. is the understanding that so much of art from 1800 until sometime in the late 1900s is about freedom. The freedom for color to be important on its own, untethered from subject. The same can be said of shape, of texture, of mark-making and eventually of space itself, though I’ve always thought Tintoretto was way ahead of his time in regard to experimenting with space. So much freedom has been brought to art, and yet you almost never see it in bird art.

I continue to try to find my own way, staying true in some way to birds and their environment, but also not ignoring all the freedom that has been part of the visual arts for about 200 years. The new mokuhanga is the latest step and one that I am happy with!

Wood Ducks Along Wissahickon, another old linocut and one trying to create a half-abstract environment, copyright 2011 by Ken Januski.

Oh yes! After asking the question about whether any bold bird artists still existed I realized that I already knew the answer. Many exist as members of The Society of Wildlife Artists and in the annual exhibition of them and other artists at 'The Natural Eye' at the Mall Galleries in London every fall. This answer could be seen as thoroughly self-serving since I've exhibited in many of those exhibitions, though not as a member. All I can say is that I don't mean it to be self-serving and I only thought about SWLA and the exhibition a few days after I had asked Google the question.

*My first footnote ever. Written before someone bites my nose off for slighting sketches. I don't mean to suggest that sketches are different from art. In many instances, if not most, I prefer the sketches of artists to their more finished work whether it is a painting, a print of whatever. I love to see work from life and I especially like much field art, if it really is field art. To me Rembrandt's sketches are more appealing than his paintings, which I also like. What I meant up above is that you can't easily take a sketch and move it to a canvas or piece of paper without some further modification. It so often loses the sense of life and spontaneity it had in the original sketch. I don't know enough about Japanese, Chinese and other related brush painting to say if they are different. I think probably that they are, that there is more appreciation for a sketch as a finished and valuable piece of art. But as I said I know too little to say anything more. 

Me and Igor

Cedar Wawings In Juniper. Mokuhanga by Ken Januski. Copyright 2026.

I have used names of famous people in titling works or in naming posts a few times in my career, really more of a homage than as anything else. In the Hemingway of last post it was neither. In fact a recent rereading of Hemingway was quite disappointing. I used him because his quote on when to stop working on a creative work for the day made a lot of sense. Quite a bit back in the past I referred to Thelonious Monk or his musical compositions in titles to some abstract paintings. This was strictly as a homage, but also as someone who understood little about jazz. I just liked it and him and I suppose I also hoped some of his artistry would magically land on my canvases just through my reference to him.

Igor in this title refers to Igor Stravinsky. I'm using his name in the title because twice in the last 20-30 years a work of his has reminded me that I don't live in the 19th century. Years ago it was 'Rite of Spring.' Last year it was 'Le Noces,' a ballet by him. Both of them were just shocking! Not in a bad way, but in an exciting way, seeming at least to me to show a type of music that I'd never heard before. The freshness and imagination were almost beyond comprehension.

I'm writing about this because once you've been exposed to that type of excitement about a work of art, it's hard to forget it. A recent rehearing of both works just showed how lasting their impact has been. So as I'm making art that is based on portraying the natural world, specifically birds, I occasionally ask myself: "What in the hell are you doing?"Are you not doing something that is astonishingly anachronistic?"

On the other hand particularly with portraying animals, and probably people as well though I've rarely used them as subject myself, there is I think a really primitive, almost atavistic desire to just portray them, to translate their living selves into something that also lives on paper or canvas. This has always been part of my goal and I greatly admire artists who pursue it honestly and not sentimentally. I think it will always be a very important part of some art.

For me however I also care about the language I use. Most artists also do to some degree or another. Whether it is words, harmony, rhythm, color, shape or whatever many artists know that they are using a language unique to their art and they want to keep that language fresh and alive. They tire of using the language of 100 years ago. It is that thought which the music of Stravinsky always brings to mind: what a new language he is using!

So when I came to do the mokuhanga of numerous Cedar Waxwings that I'd seen in early fall, especially in Junipers I had no desire AT ALL to portray them in a traditional manner. I would say that this was true of almost every print I've ever made. I am always trying to capture the life and animation of my subjects but never in a traditional way. All of this is more or less to explain how this print came about. I wanted to give some sense of waxwings and waxwings moving in junipers, but I also wanted to do so in a way that seemed fresh, that did not look like it had been created 150-200 years ago.

Maybe this is why so many people have at some time railed against any 'modern' type of art. It is a threat; it is disruptive; it can stick with you whether you want it to or not. But in my case I"m quite happy that it has. The more I look at art, of any type, the more I realize how many artists were just like this. They needed to find a new way to use their language. It is just as basic I think as the drive to portray on paper or canvas the life of things you see around you, especially animate objects. To me it Is a thrilling quest.